So festive it hurts.

We put up our first Christmas tree as a family. It is hideous.

Ever other tree I've ever put up has been beautiful. Manicured. Themed, usually. Perfect.

So how is it that this one came out so hideous? How did we ever end up this way? Here's how.

The whole thing started off well. We found the farm alright. Oliver seemed to like being pulled in the sled. The countryside was beautiful after a fresh snow fall.

The weather was fine. I wore my furry trader hat and ran around with a saw, two things that always signal a rollicking good time. We found a tree. I cut it down with no problems. The bald spots/asymmetry of it were minimal.

We got back into the car and drove home. We had fun and Christmas carols in the car.

Until Daddy took the camera away, anyway.

Accusatory finger of The Doob.

We made a pit stop at my parents' house, and I realized that we don't have a tree stand. Or lights. Or ornaments.

My parents offered to lend us the use of theirs, and we accepted. We grabbed the two boxes labeled "Christmas" and headed home. Jared and I cut off a fresh stump and a few of the lower boughs before setting the tree in the stand. We went to tighten the bolts when we realized that half of the bolts were bent and couldn't be tightened.

So what did we do? We tightened the ones that would work, and settled for a crooked tree. Who would let a few bent bolts get in the way of Christmas spirit? Certainly not these people. Not in our house. We were determined.

I then cracked open the box of lights. Only colored strands, and about 50 odd replacement bulbs for sets they definitely no longer had.

Well, that isn't my style, but okay. We could deal with that. 

I plugged in a strand and it played obnoxious Christmas music, and it wouldn't stop. Also, the red bulbs didn't work. 

We vetoed that one.

The next strand was silent, but only the green and blue bulbs worked. The third strand had all working lights and colours, but was too short for our tree and could not be extended. The last set of lights had the green, blue, and red lights working. Feeling a bit like baby bear looking for the best bowl of porridge, we said, 

"Well? Green and red are the main Christmas colours, plus we get blue as a Hanukkah bonus! Good enough!"

We strung the lights on as best we could, and they looked okay. With all things considered, it looked great! Our tree was crooked and the lights were weird colours, but it would take more than a crooked tree and some funky coloured (seizure inducing & flashing) Christmas lights to slow down all of this festivity. After all, we couldn't give up at the first signs of trouble. What are we, grinches?! Certainly not.

We opened up the ornament box and realized that the only bulbs we had were red, with some sort of floral gold glitter on them. Tacky, but fine! I've seen worse! I put them on the tree.

 Underneath the bulbs were compartment after compartment of home made Christmas ornaments. Some of these handmade gems were molded with the help of an ashtray. Others were made from construction paper and Elmer's. Still more were festooned with glitter glue and tinsel garland. 

Every one of them featured a tiny, fading, red tinted picture of the kids who made it. Jared and I  strung them up, guessing which face belonged to which of my sisters. Each year I'd looked at those ornaments, but they were never hung. The trees I decorated always had themes - silver and red, blue and white, or candy cane stripes. I never used the hand made ornaments because they just couldn't fit in with the perfect, factory made beauties.

But this year (partially because we had no alternatives) I busted them out. 

Every. Single. One.

I put them all on, each one assigned a prominent spot to shine in garish glory. It felt right. It felt like us -  a family tradition that is a little bit embarrassing, a lot bit tacky, but well intentioned.

We stepped back, and took in the whole blinking, glittering, crooked hot mess of a Christmas tree.

We put up our first Christmas tree. It is hideous. And it is perfect.

Evil Genius.

I think I can say this without prejudice.

Oliver is smart.

It's hard. Very hard for me, anyway. I feel like I am always trying to run 2 steps ahead of him so that I can diffuse his next offensive. And, while you may be thinking, he's a baby! How hard can it be?

Very hard.

As some of you know, we recently purchased a little dining table and chairs. Those chairs will be my downfall. He dragged them down the hall and stood on them to open the pantry door. By the time I found him, he had his head stuck in a Cheerios box.

On several different occasions, he has climbed up onto the chairs then onto the table so that he can take the pictures off the wall.  Yesterday I caught him trying to climb over the gate with the assistance of one of those chairs.

Today he had me halfway convinced I was crazy. I looked over, saw him in his high chair and thought... oops! Forgot about him eating breakfast. Better go get him down.

Then, mysteriously, twenty minutes later he was back in the chair. I thought.. oops! Could've sworn I already got him down.

By the third time I realized he was climbing onto a chair and the climbing over his tray and sitting down in his highchair. Sneaky, sneaky boy.

Even without the chairs he's still a force to be reckon with. He's used his little broom to knock things off of ledges he can't reach. He turns the TV on for himself while I'm not looking. Sometimes I forget that he isn't supposed to be watching, so he gets to watch a whole show before I realize what he's done. He's learned to knock on the wall, making me run to the door like a stupid dog barking at the doorbell on TV.

My baby is outsmarting me, and he's not even one and a half years old.

Talking.

Over the last couple months, Oliver has really made strides in the language department. Most of his words are (to me, at least) pretty useless but he has them nonetheless. But something I don't get, is how he comes up with his words.

Why does he say "poop" and "burp" but not "up" or "mommy" ? He says "my, my, my!" but not "eat", "food",  or "hungry."  The words I try hardest to teach him are the words he has no interest in saying. I get the feeling that most of his conversations are going to center around bathroom humor. (Which, unfortunately, I get enough of from his dad.)

Very rarely does he use the actual noun for what he means to say.

Horses? They're neigh neighs. Dogs are woof woofs. Ducks are quack quacks. Babies are mamas. Cars are sometimes cars, but more often vroom vrooms. Cold is Brr!

Since I caught on to that pattern, I've been trying harder to say the noun more often than the sound effect. Still, he seems to have no interest in nouns. For now, that's okay with me. At least it's something.

New words are always exciting. We've been working very hard on saying "please" instead of just shouting "more!" It was slow going for a while, but today he decided to make please his own.

He wanted Cheerios, so he pointed up and yelled "ease!" It worked. I got him Cheerios. He wanted a bite of my sandwich, so he pulled on my arm and said, "ease!" It worked again. Later I walked into the kitchen and closed the gate behind me. He reached through the bars and said "ease!" but I ignored him. When I started walking away, he only yelled "ease, Ease, EASE!" more. Later this afternoon, he climbed up onto the table via a stray chair. He was joyfully pulling the picture frames off the wall when I plucked him off the table and carried him to the couch. All the while he screamed, "EASE, EASE, EASE!"

Suddenly, the magic word "ease" lost its magic. If you can't use it to stand on top of the dining table, what good is it? WHY EVEN BOTHER TO HAVE THE WORD IF IT DOESN'T OPEN THE BABY GATE INTO THE KITCHEN!?

While we were flipping through family pictures, he tried to say his name for (as far as I'm aware) the first time. He called himself Allah. Great. People are going to love that.

Snow.

Sorry I was gone so long! Holidays, a new baby being born, visitors... we've been busy!

My friend's baby was born completely healthy. This is Lily.

I was there when she was born, taking photos. I stayed over there for a few days to help out, and I'll probably be heading back that way again soon. But the strange thing? I thought I'd see this new pink baby and it'd make my ovaries ache for more. But it didn't. It just made me appreciate how much Oliver can do. I like that he sleeps (usually) all night long. I like that I can leave him in the care of others. I like that I don't have to carry him everywhere. I like that he can (sort of) tell me what he wants. It's nice that takes care of himself when I don't feel like watching him.

Jared's mom came to visit Oliver and have Thanksgiving dinner with us. We kept it low key and made a Honey Baked Ham. The ham was good and it was nice that we didn't have to travel and wrangle Oliver in a strange place. The following Saturday we visited with my brother and sister and parents. We played a lot of Kinect. It was fun! Haven't had fun at a family gathering for some time.

Other news... Hmm... We got a new TV stand that isn't a death threat to our baby. There was a huge ice storm that tried to kill us all on the way home from dinner one night. Some of our Christmas cards are trickling to our friends and family. I'm starting to paint our living room. Oliver is back to his 100% and he's been sleeping through the night and being his cheerful self.

But the big news? Oliver loves the snow. He loves to go outside. (After a half hour of putting on layers and coats and mittens and a hat.) We walk outside and he yells, "Brr!" Then he flounders around in the snow and pats it with his mittened flipper hands. It isn't like he can build snowmen or throw snowballs, but for some reason the snow delights him anyway.

Dance off.

So!

I've been away because I've been terribly busy and stressed out. My friend is most likely to be induced tomorrow evening. Ive been back and forth visiting her and very busy taking care of little Doobie. Since he's gotten sick, he's slept through the night ONCE. He woke up at least once every night, but on some nights four or 5 times. And the worst part? He didn't want to go back to bed. He didn't want me to change him. He didn't want me to hold him. He wanted to scream.

My patience and energy was at an all time low.

There were so many times when I wanted to scream at him. I didn't, but I feel incredibly guilty because I even thought about screaming. I wanted him to go away for a while because I was WAY too tired to be dealing with that.

I couldn't grocery shop without him screaming and climbing out of the cart. I couldn't take him on walks without him crawling out of the stroller. Foods he typically loves were thrown on the floor. He hit me. He bit me. He kicked and thrashed every time I tried to change his diaper.

Since being sick, he was a royal pain. I called him a jerk. I felt terrible, but it still happened. He hit me and I told him he was a jerk. It made me cry. Jared was incredibly busy with projects in school, so from morning to night I was with that volatile, cranky baby.

Normally when I start to get tired, I let my parents babysit for a while. This was my plan last Friday, but when I buckled him into the car? He screamed. I pulled out into traffic? Still screaming. I offered him toys? Screamed. After 15 minutes of screaming, I just couldn't take it anymore and I turned around and went home. I don't think I would've made it the full 45 minutes to my parents' house without completely flipping on him.

I dropped him in the bath (a crowd pleaser here) and waited for 7 o clock to come around so I could put him into bed. I put him down early - at six - and sat down just completely feeling like a failure. Jared was at school without his phone. There was no food, since I couldn't grocery shop with him. There was no laundry, since I didn't get it done. The house was generally a big mess.

I called my (almost) mother-in-law and cried about my baby being a jerk.

Finally Jared came home and we ordered in pizza. Since it was a weekend, I thought I'd be able to drop him off at my parents' the next morning, but then... Bam! Snowstorm. 7 inches of snow. We were stuck with cranky pants face for the weekend.

His attitude improved on Saturday and Sunday, and by the time my parents came and picked him up on Monday I would've rated him at a 2 on the scale between "Grumpy" and "I'm ready to start strangling kittens with my bare hands."

He even slept through the night last night, so maybe, just maybe, he's all done with this grumpy sicky phase.

Tonight I got home from my parents' and put Oliver to bed. He went down without any fight.  Then I turned on music and had my own personal dance off. It was kind of fun, and I feel better.

(And, by the way, I am a terrible dancer.)

Optimism.

I want to be like this lady.  On the 26th, she will turn 107 years old, making her the oldest surviving victim of the Holocaust.

I am a huge believer that happiness is a choice, even if I sometimes forget that. Alice is a great reminder.



I have every reason in the world to be happy, so I will be.

(This is the trailer for a documentary about Alice, titled Alice Dancing Under the Gallows which, I think, will be released next year.)

Pneumonia.

Oliver has pneumonia. He had a runny nose for probably a week, and then Sunday I finally said, "Well, looks like you're all better!"

Turns out, he wasn't.

He woke up in the middle of the night with a raging fever. As the day wore on and his fever got higher and he got tireder, we started thinking something was wrong. Then he started grunting with each breath, so we took him into the ER. They did chest xrays, and declared he has pneumonia.

He went from this:

To this:

In less than 24 hours.

For most of today he seemed better, but as the day wore on his fever started creeping back. For the most part, though, he was in a decent mood. Decent enough, anyway, to watch The Cat in the Hat from his favorite spot up on the couch.

TV induced zombie stare.

He even let me hold him on my lap while we watched an hour of TV. What a nice boy.